Would you be interested in practical steps that can help you regain your health and happiness?
It seems like more and more people are getting sick. One hundred and thirty three million people are struggling with chronic disease, including autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, heart disease, depression, and cancer. One hundred and sixteen million of us are struggling with chronic pain.
Have you ever wondered if there are any self-help steps you can take that will make a positive difference in your life?
Read on to discover practical ways to regain your health and happiness.
What is causing so many of us to get sick?
Many of our modern diseases are created by high levels of inflammation in our bodies. A few more of these inflammation-based diseases include irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, fibroid tumors, ulcers, migraines, asthma, and even serious mental health issues.
The next question becomes: “What is causing all this inflammation?”
We are in a perfect storm of life style, dietary choices, and a damaged stress response system. Taken together these factors are causing over-the-top inflammation.
If you want to heal, you need to address the root cause of your disease. No matter how many medications you take you can’t expect to heal unless you turn down the inflammation.
How did all of this get started?
In Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal (2015), author Donna Jackson Nakazawa describes cutting edge research linking childhood issues with the onset of many of our most serious and chronic diseases.
In my last post, “Are Childhood Problems the Root Cause of Many of Our Serious Diseases?” I described this research. To summarize, when you experienced childhood adversity, your stress response system became damaged. Your body got really good at turning on the stress response, but lost the ability to turn it off. When your body is stressed it responds by creating chemicals that cause inflammation.
An effective way to repair your stress response system is to heal emotional wounds from your childhood. Click on “Are you new to the site?” to read more.
This is step one in the perfect storm.
How your life style creates stress
I am sure most of you would agree that our modern life style is stressful. We are working hard at our jobs, we taking care of our families, and even our leisure time can be stressful. We start feeling like hamsters on a wheel. We are running so fast we never take time to care for ourselves.
Here are a few suggestions to create less stress in your life. Start a meditation practice or use guided imagery to calm your mind. Get enough sleep. According to WebMD sleep deprivation can lead to serious problems including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
Your thought patterns and belief systems can keep you feeling upset and distressed. Worries that you are not good enough or that others are judging you can keep you on edge. The poetry of emotion process can help you regain a balanced mental and emotional life. See “Are you new to the site?”
How your diet creates stress
We don’t usually think of the food we eat as a stressor. There are three ways your diet can stress your body.
First, more of us are becoming reactive to grains and gluten (found in wheat, rye, and barley). Second, food allergies and sensitivities are becoming all too common. I have talked to people who were sensitive to what most of us think are healthy foods, such as blue berries and yellow squash. These reactions lead to more inflammation in your body.
Finally, you may be eating highly processed foods with added chemicals. These processed foods make your body work harder and they may be replacing foods that nourish your body.
You can explore clean eating and grain free diets. Wheat Belly Total Health: The Ultimate Grain-Free Health and Weight Loss Life Plan by William Davis, MD and Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar – Your Brain’s Silent Killers by David Perlmutter, MD are two books that can help you decide if grain-free is right for you.
What is your next step?
I have covered a lot of information in this post. Making all these changes at once can add to your already overloaded system.
Pick one area and start small. As you lower your inflammation and start to feel better you can make more changes.
You will be amazed at how good you can feel when your body is no longer stressed and inflamed.
Where are you going to start? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
(Image: Berit Watkin @ Flickr)
